Just a quickie (matron). This may all be well-known, but it is new to me. I came across a hex-&-command-card game for the 30 Years War (and, by implication, the English Civil War) called White Mountain. This is available for free download from Anubis Studios. It is very obviously a close relative of Commands & Colors, and appears to be played on a CCA board. The download includes rules (4 pages), QuickRef, text explanations of the cards (you have to make your own) and some pretty snazzy looking stickers to put on wooden blocks.
I had a quick squint last night - a little more of the philosophy behind the game would have helped, but there may be some of that on Anubis' pleasantly wacky website. At first glance, there are a number of interesting features in the game - units accumulate "disruption" points as well as losses, direction of facing is used to identify flank and rear attacks, command appears to be only at unit level. Some of it looks pretty clever, though it is possible that some of the simple elegance (elegant simplicity?) of C&C has been lost among the bells and whistles. The move sequence, for example, includes a number of options which I was still thinking about when I dozed off last night.
This has not compromised my devotion to Victory without Quarter, I hasten to add, but it is free(!), and may give an appetizer for Richard Borg's mooted prototype ECW Commands & Colors game, which I am definitely watching out for.
Having got a few decks clear, I hope to start painting my first ECW units this coming weekend, so am looking forward to that. A couple of fairly generic units of foot to start - one of Royalist blewcoats and some whitecoat Parliamentarians, I think. I have bought in a small stock of florist's wire for cheapo pikes, but I hear a rumour that they also make brown florist's wire, so am looking around for that. Painting wire is not hard, but it's dead boring.
Anyway - thought I'd mention White Mountain.
Tony,
ReplyDeletemay I suggest using nylon bristles from a cheap street brush. You get about 1500 pikes from one brush. Mostly these bristles are red, but brown ones can be found. It's easy to cut or sand a point to them and they are unbreakable and when bent they pop back into shape.On the net I saw someone who packed them in bags of 20 and sold them for £1.50. That's about 7500% profit. Why didn't I think of that?
Actually, I have a spare couple of hundred or so left over, interested?
Pjotr
Pjotr - excellent suggestion - this is the sort of homespun hobby tip we used to get in Wargamers' Newsletter in the dark ages - I miss that stuff - trees made of loofah and horse-glue, hills made of plaster bandage, etc. Thank you for this. I was thinking about what sort of brushes we might have lying in the garage and woodshed, and then I thought what these brushes may have been used for (this being a farm in a very wet climate) and have decided that a trip to my local hardware store could be just the thing for tomorrow.
DeleteThank you! - Regards - Tony